


there’s plenty of time to make you mine

by badritual



Series: Exchange Fic [52]
Category: Ready or Not (2019)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Ambiguous/Open Ending, Don't copy to another site, F/M, Gen, The Creeping Sense That Something Isn't Quite Right and Not Being Able to Put a Finger On Why, The Darkest Night Exchange Fest, The Darkest Night Exchange Fest 2020, came back wrong, creeping sense of dread
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-29
Updated: 2020-09-29
Packaged: 2021-03-08 04:42:00
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 845
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26589799
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/badritual/pseuds/badritual
Summary: They’re both alive. They made it. Together.
Relationships: Daniel Le Domas & Grace Le Domas, Daniel Le Domas/Grace Le Domas
Series: Exchange Fic [52]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1705675
Comments: 9
Kudos: 47
Collections: Darkest Night 2020





	there’s plenty of time to make you mine

**Author's Note:**

  * For [thatsparrow](https://archiveofourown.org/users/thatsparrow/gifts).



> Written for thatsparrow for darkestnight 2020! It's a bit more mysterious and vague than I intended for it to be but I hope you enjoy this little post-canon AU!
> 
> Thanks to B for looking this over!
> 
> Title from "So Come Back, I Am Waiting," by Okkervil River.

Grace thinks she’s died and gone to—well, _somewhere_ when she wakes up in the hospital and finds Daniel slumped next to her bed, his arm resting across the railing, fingers curled loosely in her pale pink blanket. His pale gray dress shirt is blood-spattered—she remembers him dying, remembers seeing the life drain out of his eyes in front of her—and yet he seems no worse for the wear. He’s _alive_.

They’re both alive. They made it. Together.

“Daniel,” Grace rasps out, her voice barely above a choked whisper. It hurts to breathe. To move. To even just blink. “Daniel,” she tries again, a second time, when her thready whisper fails to rouse him. 

Daniel lifts his head then, piercing her with an unsettling eye before he blinks and the moment passes. He uncurls stiff fingers from her blanket and reaches out for her. He brushes his fingertips lightly against the back of her hand before snatching her hand in his. 

“You’re awake,” he says, sounding breathless too, like he’d just run a marathon though a five-alarm fire. He quirks the corner of his mouth up in the implication of a smile. “They had to give you a sedative. You were out of control.”

But he says it with a proud gleam in his eye that warms Grace over. 

“You look like shit.” She wheezes out a laugh like a rusty access gate in desperate need of an oiling. “What happened? I thought you…”

Memories dance through Grace’s mind like the glint of a knife blade, slashing and cutting across her conscious. Blood soaking through Daniel’s pale shirt. Blood staining his lips like sun-ripened strawberries. 

Fucking Charity.

Fucking _family_.

“First thing I’m doing once I get out of this place,” Grace gasps, as she coughs wetly, throat burning, “is changing my name.”

“What was it before,” Daniel asks, fingers still clutched loosely around her hand. “Before… Well.”

Grace keeps letting him hold her hand, though something scratches at the back of her brain, urging her to snatch it away. Urging her to rip the IV out of her arm and fucking run. She doesn’t run, though. Part of her feels sedated, too drugged to flee. And why would she run now, anyway? Daniel is safe. Daniel is good. 

_Daniel is dead._

Grace pulls her lips back in what she hopes is a smile. “It’s super long and super Balkan,” she jokes. “Only heirloom my parents left me.” 

Daniel offers a smile, one that doesn’t quite reach his eyes. “You could keep Le Domas if you want,” he says, his tone dipping, pulling at something deep and innate within her, like they’ve been tied together with string. 

“What? What do you mean,” Grace asks, fumbling for his hand across the railing of her hospital bed. 

“I’m free,” he says, and she knows he doesn’t just mean because his family’s dead. Because she killed— _beat_ —them. “You’re free now too.”

Grace feels the press of Daniel’s mouth against the top of her head—which aches for some reason, though she doesn’t remember being hit or falling into anything—and closes her eyes. She breathes deep—or at least tries to—and starts coughing again, choking on stale, sour air. Daniel’s hand presses firm against her back, rubbing between her shoulder blades, his palm dry on the sliver of bare skin her hospital gown can’t cover.

“I—I—” she stammers, because _really_? They barely know each other. His family literally just tried to hunt her for sport. “I don’t know. Feels like everything’s happening at once. Yesterday I was gonna spend the rest of my life with your brother. And now… I guess I’m a fucking widow.”

Grace starts laughing, which resolves into body-wracking coughs. Daniel pats her lightly on the back.

Daniel stills his hand on her, draws her close, close enough that she can rest her cheek on his shoulder. “We can take our time.” 

Grace closes her eyes. He smells…different. Thick, earthy, like freshly turned dirt. She turns her head, pressing her nose against his neck. Daniel’s arms encircle her, pinning her own arms against her sides. He rocks her slowly, and it’s almost comforting—but not _quite_.

A warning pings at the back of Grace’s mind, but something tugs at her insides, pulling her slowly under. 

Grace lets go with a sigh, bone and muscle sagging deeply, content to let herself be carried away on a cloud of painkillers. 

Daniel murmurs against her ear, the scent of rotting flesh filling her nostrils. “We have all the time in the world.” 

She wants to scream and push him away—wants to curse his goddamn family to the tenth generation, at this point she’d curse her own flesh and blood if she’d let Alex knock her up—but she can’t even lift a finger, she’s just so _tired_ now.

Grace lets go and sinks into the beckoning black, and just as she's about to go under she hears _the damn song_ wafting over the speakers and then she knows nothing more but peace.


End file.
